Sweet and Savory Serendipity

A partnership with the School District of Jericho A partnership with the School District of Jericho Big dreams start small. This is especially true when it comes to fueling the futures of young authors. The Canon Solutions America Future Authors Project, a free program offered in partnership with the School District of Palm Beach County, was created 11 years ago to help inspire students with a passion for writing. Canon Solutions America’s dream of expanding the Future Authors Project came true when the Jericho School District became the first school in New York to participate in the program. The project’s summer workshop provides students with insight into the process of Serendipity and Savory Sweet Sweet writing, editing, and digitally publishing books through instruction by certified teachers, and Savory interactions with Canon experts, and insight from local published authors. Canon cameras and instructional classes are also shared with students and faculty to provide vivid photography to accompany their writing. Throughout the workshop, students work on crafting poems, essays, and short stories to polish their writing, editing, story development, and critical thinking skills. Each Serendipity student’s work is compiled and digitally printed and bound into book form using Canon printing technology. Canon Solutions America, Inc., a Canon U.S.A. Company, provides leading enterprise, production, and large format printing solutions, supported by exceptional professional service offerings. Visit csa.canon.com. Canon Solutions America Future Authors Project, 2017 in partnership with All Photos in this book taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. the Jericho School District Printed using Canon Digital Technology at Digital Lizard NJ, an LSC Communications Company. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States and elsewhere. All other referenced product names and marks are trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged. © 2017 Canon Solutions America, Inc. All rights reserved. 10/17-375 Jericho School District Jericho, New York 11753 National School of Excellence United States Department of Education Henry L. Grishman Superintendent of Schools Barbara Bauer Assistant Superintendent Curriculum & Instruction Ben Ciuffo, Ed.D. Assistant Superintendent Personnel & Educational Operations Victor Manuel Assistant Superintendent Business Operations Board of Education William Ferro, President Jill Citron, Vice President Pam Wasserman-Heath, Trustee Barbara Krieger, Trustee Daborah Lee, Trustee High School Administration Joan Rosenberg, Principal Dagoberto Artiles, Assistant Principal John Mankowich, Assistant Principal 1 A Special Thank You The Canon Future Authors Project at Jericho High School was possible due to the continuous support from our Jericho Board of Education. The process began over a year ago with Victor Manuel introducing an idea about working with Canon. Thank you to Hank, Ben, Barbara, and John for always supporting our students to achieve new heights. The students in this workshop participated in an inspiring writing community in collaboration with their teachers. The opportunity for students to create this book is how we are preparing students to be “future ready.” Extra thanks to Suzanne Valenza for amplifying student voice and modeling how we are all learners. Dr. Daniel Salzman 2 Foreward I’m very much a planner, an organizer. But it’s life’s serendipities that remind me that sometimes the best experiences are those not sought after—for instance this collaboration with Canon Solutions America. I was simply delighted when presented with the opportunity to lead a writing workshop for colleagues and students who all view themselves as writers. We came together for four summer days and shared ourselves, our relationships to food, and of course our writing. We composed poetry, memoir, and still life photography. Thanks to Canon, we used very high-tech equipment to help bring our inner visions to a more powerful fruition. My choice of food as a theme for our workshop came from my own love of the food memoir genre, my admiration for its heroine, MFK Fisher, and my experiences teaching it to young people in my creative writing classes. This genre has a unique ability to release the struggle, beauty, and essence of our experiences. When we look at our lives through food, we examine what makes us human, and this shared humanity deepens our unity. On behalf of our group, I invite you to relish the works in this book. We hope they inspire you to create your own works of food art and literature, and to always, as MFK Fisher said, “pay attention to our appetites.” Suzanne Valenza 3 4 Table of Contents Susan Baek 9 About Me 9 Birthday Memoir 10 Banana Essay 13 Ode to Ice Cream 15 Nadine Bouler 16 About Me 16 Our Daily Bread 17 Mamaw’s Mandarin Orange Cake 21 Ode to Cheese 24 Caroline Chen 25 About Me 25 Serial Cereal Schtick 26 My Beef Noodle Soup 30 Ballad to Burgers 33 Thomas Chen 34 About Me 34 Midnight Scramble 35 Ode to Rice 37 Allison D’Antonio 38 About Me 38 Confessions of a Bad Italian 39 Orange Angels 41 Before I Go 44 Larry Ding 47 About Me 47 Noodle Rebel 48 Ode to Root Beer 51 5 Maria Grafas 52 About Me 52 Unwrapping Christmas 53 Oh No, Tomato! 55 Patricia Gulitti 56 About Me 56 Tea and Independence 57 Ode to Lasagna 62 Mellene Hederian 64 About Me 64 There’s Nothing Like a Sunset 65 Al Fresco 69 Ode to Crab Legs 74 Nolani Kennedy-White 75 About Me 75 Warm Welcome 76 Thanksgiving Habits 79 Ode to Shirley Temples 82 Anchita Khurana 83 About Me 83 Always the Chopsticks 84 Subway 88 Fahtima Khwaja 90 About Me 90 It’s My Food 91 The Love of My Life: An Ode to Chocolate Chip Cookies 94 Asher Lipman 95 About Me 95 Breaking Bread 96 Where’s the Magic? 100 Grilled Cheese 103 6 Swati Madankumar 104 About Me 104 Spices 105 The After-school Snack That Never Was 108 Ode to Cereal 110 Heather McGee 111 About Me 111 Banana Sandwiches 112 Nancy Rasmussen 114 About Me 114 Savor the Memories 115 Love Never Perishes 118 Ode to Dr. Pepper 120 Jerry Romano 121 About Me 121 Casatiello 122 Dr. Daniel Salzman 124 About Me 124 Bread and Cheese 125 Bread and Cheese 127 Casey Snyder 128 About Me 128 Ode to Hawaii Salmon 129 Suzanne Valenza 131 About Me 131 Quest for Quenelle 132 An Early Experience with Writing 134 7 Marguerite Wang 135 About Me 135 Taking a Bite of Life 136 Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right 139 Alex Q. Xu 147 About Me 147 Peach Pie 148 Future Author’s Project 150 Press Releases Canon Solutions America’s Future Authors 151 Project Releases Ninth Published Book Future Author’s Program Commemorates Aspiring 153 Writers with its Tenth Published Book 8 Susan Baek Dreams and dedication are a powerful combination. “ – William Longgood” Born in Bayside, Queens, Susan spent most of her childhood in the bright and bustling city. After eight years of residing in Queens, Susan and her family decided to move to the suburbs of Long Island: Jericho. Throughout her life, Susan has encountered various cultures, food and languages, and learned to develop a sense of appreciation for all people and their ways of living. Susan Baek is a high school writer and an avid advocate for human rights. She started her writing career in elementary school from writing simple travel journals to developing storylines for her fictional characters. Recently, Susan began to take a deeper interest in human rights and social entrepreneurship, and aspires to study in those fields in college possibly launching her own non-profit organization. Outside of academics, Susan has performed in world-renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, due to her dedication to cello performance. 9 Birthday Memoir Birthdays are a time of celebration for any household, in any country around the world. Although the means of celebrating or maybe even holding a party differ, food is one thing that encompasses birthdays for all types of families, big or small. Growing up in a Korean household situated in the suburbs of New York brought a sometimes chaotic clash between two opposing cultures: Eastern and Western. My mom immigrated from South Korea a year before I was born. First being introduced to my dad through a mutual friend, they had their first conversation through the phone, scrambling to say their greetings in fear of phone bills piling up. My dad on the other hand, moved to the United States when he was a junior in high school. He was always the one accustomed to the culture, able to speak English quite fluently, and effectively establishing his own workforce and his business. It was always difficult for my mom to assimilate into the American culture; struggling and clawing at the cultural and language barriers, asking me or my dad for definitions or phrases. Her method of keeping familiar culture in the house was learning how to cook 10 Korean meals, or making sure that my sister and I were fluent in Korean so that we would be able to communicate in both countries. And it was also her way of making sure that she wasn’t as lonely. When I was younger, it was always my grandparents who took me around to places, and since I lived with them, Korean naturally became my first language and culture even though I was born in the States. Thus, birthdays were always celebrated “biculturally” – a word that I created to describe my family. In Korea, it is a tradition to eat seaweed soup on your birthday; it’s supposed to symbolize moving up and gaining another year worth of maturity and experience apparently.

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